Dr. Larry E. Roberts

The specific features of many sounds that we hear and the significance attached to these sounds are unique for each individual and cannot be anticipated by a genetic code. To meet the challenge of uniqueness, the brain contains mechanisms for neural plasticity that tune auditory neurons to represent the sounds that are meaningful to us. We use brain imaging and acoustic training methods to understand how neural plasticity modifies sensory maps in children and adults and to uncover the principles and mechanisms involved. The knowledge gained from laboratory studies is applied to understand how plasticity sculpts foundations for auditory skills in professional musicians and in children receiving music training and how it may generate tinnitus (chronic ringing of the ears), an auditory deafferentation syndrome affecting quality of life for millions of individuals world-wide. By understanding tinnitus we gain insight into how the brain generates the sensation of sound.

Some of our current journal publications are listed below. Learn more about us by visiting our laboratory website at http://www.psychology.mcmaster.ca/hnplab. Inquiries from prospective students are welcome.

Dr. Roberts received his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1965 and is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour at McMaster University. His research with colleagues Antoine Shahin, Laurel Trainor, and Daniel Bosnyak on how music training alters brain activity in professional musicians and in children enrolled in Suzuki music programs has been reported by the CBC, ABC, CNN, and Bloomberg Radio Networks, by the Globe and Mail, Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times, Hamilton Spectator, and the New York Times. In 2002 Roberts organized a consortium of five laboratories in Canada and two abroad to investigate the neural basis of tinnitus and in November 2010 headed up a symposium on the topic at the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, California. Roberts has held Guest Professorships at the University of Tuebingen (Germany) and the Humboldt University (Berlin) funded by the Deutsche Forchungsgemeinschaft and has been a faculty member in the Summer Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College (USA). From 2003-2008 he directed the MEG laboratory of the Down Syndrome Research Foundation in Vancouver B.C. (affiliated with Simon Fraser University) while continuing to direct his laboratory at McMaster. His research has been supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the American Tinnitus Association, and the Tinnitus Research Initiative.